Courtney Force and her dad, John, enjoy some family togetherness on Lake Tahoe.

By Courtney Force, special for USA TODAY

Editor's note: NHRA driver Courtney Force will document her summer on the drag-racing circuit in an online diary for USA TODAY:

We just landed in Lake Tahoe, which is where we usually come for our family vacations, and we're looking forward to spending time here for the Fourth of July. But I should've known that my dad had different plans for me. He felt we needed quality time up here, but it was not all relaxing.

To drive a fuel Funny Car there are things that we needed to discuss between going to the beach and riding bikes. He thought there needed to be time to discuss the Funny Car while also hitting the gym. Although I enjoy the time to relax and get away, I knew he was right. My dad knows what it takes to drive these Funny Cars more than anyone I know.

We started taking time hitting the gym while he taught me the importance of strength training to help me with controlling the race car. Since my dad's crash in 2007, he learned how to get his body back in shape during rehab and learned routines for getting the right muscles working to help him have the strength to control his Funny Car.

Now, three years later, he has been practicing the same routine that has a special focus on the right muscles for holding his brake handle, controlling the fuel levers, the clutch, the throttle, and being able to get in and out of the race car in case of emergency, and keeping the car in the groove. This routine is the same routine my dad's teaching me to help me learn what it takes to control a Funny Car, after all these cars travel at speeds over 300 mph.

Although I've been practicing towing the Funny Car around, the next step is training to control the race car which is very important because I need to learn how to have as much strength as all of these other drivers who I would potentially be competing against in the future, and I need to work hard to be on their same level. Being a girl, I might even need to work a little extra to get the right strength to control this "beast," as dad calls it. This is all a part of the Funny Car 101 training in process.

Dad always has a way of motivating me at the gym and although it gets exhausting trying to keep up with his heavy lifting, I just have to think about how bad I want this for myself as a career as a professional race car driver. After all of our race car talks and the strength training through the last few days, I finally got a chance to hit the beach and put the boat on the water with my family for the Fourth of July.

We took the boat out, with dad's amazing boating skills, as we almost ran into rocks trying to get the boat ashore. Once we had the entire beach's attention, I decided to just make the chaos easy so I dropped the anchor where I thought the boat should go.

Although dad has good advice with how to drive a Funny Car, sometimes I have to take my own advice on these things because my dad is definitely not a boatsman. But just when I thought my dad couldn't get any more embarrassing he shows up for our day out on the boat with a John Force Racing Shirt, his signature 25 years with Castrol hat, Nordic Boats swim shorts, and Oakleys. He's like a walking advertisement.

When my dad's not at the races he's begging for fans to come up and talk to him about racing. If my dad's not at the race track or in his race car he feels completely out of his element, but it's always fun to take a break from racing and be with the family for holiday weekends.

After being on the boat all day we headed back to start barbecuing so we could make it to the beach and watch the fireworks show. But dad being dad, he noticed people who looked stranded standing outside of our driveway and he asked them what they were doing. They said their cars had been towed and they were trying to figure out how to get to the tow yard. So dad started shuffling people and shuttling them to their cars, just to have something to do. He's always making friends and might have even found some new race fans that day.

The next morning I woke up to dad on the phone talking so loud he woke up the entire house. He was doing an interview with Jim Riley from The Times in Seattle and with Terry Blount from ESPN. Dad's always working with the media even while on vacation. I overheard him talking me up and my training process in the Funny Car. Although I'm so excited about it, it just added a little extra pressure on me while trying to live up to expectations. Hopefully this hard work pays off and I can learn how to drive this race car.

After spending time in Lake Tahoe and continuing training for driving a Funny Car, I'm excited to race my Ford/Brand Source Dragster this weekend in Seattle with my sister Brittany, where I will be defending my title in A-Fuel Dragster and starting the western swing with the rest of my family!

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